


On the Mating Habits of Space Penguins

by throughtosunrise



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 07:22:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10894497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/throughtosunrise/pseuds/throughtosunrise
Summary: Some people think flowers or chocolates make great gifts for the people they're dating.  Ryder likes to bring Peebee bits of Remnant technology, and thinks she's being low-key about it.Two problems: Ryder couldn't be low-key if she tried, and her crew is full of nerds.  Avoiding a lot of teasing?  Not going to happen.





	On the Mating Habits of Space Penguins

The Nomad's doors opened up with a soft hydraulic hiss, and three pairs of boots hit the cargo bay deck along with a shower of sand. 

"Another problem solved," Sara said cheerfully as she took off her helmet, then sighed when another small shower of sand fell out of the seams.  "And Gil won't even have to replace any tires this time."

From upstairs in the engine room, right on cue, came an indignant cry of, "What have you done to my baby?"

Drack huffed a low, guttural laugh.  "Heh.  Sure, but the thrusters are going to need a tuneup after that stunt jump you pulled off.  That was a good one, by the way, kid."

Sara gave him her best innocent look, despite the fact that not a single person on the crew would ever fall for it, and held up her hands.  "Hey, when Remnant architecture gives me the perfect speed ramp, can you really blame me?"

Drack thumped a hand down on her shoulder, hard enough to startle a cough out of her.  "Never said I _blamed_ you for it, did I?  Can't speak for Gil, though."

Cora came around from the other side of the Nomad, shaking her head at both of them.  "Ryder, _no_ ," she said for about the millionth time.  (It was a familiar, but probably utterly futile, refrain.). "But I'll feel better, at least, knowing the kett won't be spying on Prodromos any more."

"Heh," Drack replied.  "Those little surveillance devices sure explode nice, gotta give them credit for that."

 Sara rubbed at a scorch mark on her left greave and made a face.  "Just remind me to stand back a little further next time."

"No, that was the flammable canisters lying around.  Maybe if you didn't like to punch things so much," Cora said dryly, but she was smiling.  "Okay, I'm going to hit the showers before I get to work on this report.  Addison will want to know about the kett surveillance."

"Try not to sound so enthusiastic about it," Drack told her.  "I better check in with Kesh, myself."

"So you're both leaving me to clean out the Nomad by myself?" Sara asked, feigning an entirely unconvincing pitiful expression.

"Hey, you made the mess, kid," Drack called over his shoulder, already on his way toward the galley.  "You get to clean it up."

She couldn't help pouting at him a little bit, though the pout dissolved into a goofy grin after about half a second.  "Fine," she said, and poked her head back into the Nomad to assess its condition.

It wasn't actually a mess.  There were just two crates carefully strapped in behind the driver's side where the fourth seat had been repurposed as a cargo space, but those crates were packed full of Remnant components.  "Hey, Liam, you around?"

Liam poked his head out of the aft storage room.  "What's up, Ryder?"

"Mind leaving your couch for a few minutes and giving me a hand with these?"

"You got it," Liam said, and he was over to the Nomad in about three strides.  "Go on, give 'em a push, I'll take it from there."

"Just help me get them onto the deck," Sara told him. "Got a space all set for them already."

Sara nodded and crawled into the Nomad's back seat, kicking the driver's seat as far forward as it would go.  She stretched her right arm out in a practiced gesture and felt the familiar tingle of the eezo nodules flaring under her skin.  Biotic energy coalesced around her arm, and she enveloped the first crate in a mass effect field and gave it a very gentle push through the open hatch. "Hey Liam, catch!"

Liam huffed good-naturedly as he intercepted the crate's trajectory and set it down on the deck like it weighed no more than a datapad. "Biotics. So useful. What'd you need my help for, anyway?"

Sara dropped the mass of the second crate and floated it out to him, then hopped out of the Nomad. "Just to be on the safe side. It's habit from when I was working with my team out in the Traverse: don't try to move shit by yourself, especially ancient, valuable, mysterious shit. Even if you're biotic."  She paused. "Um. Not literal shit. Well, there was that time we were convinced we found a Prothean toilet."

Liam snickered, then nodded and made sure both crates were safely on the ground before he straightened up. "Right, right. You used to dig up Prothean artifacts. You miss it that much?"

"Huh?"

"All the Remnant stuff." He chucked a thumb in the direction of the crates. "You're always collecting tons of it out in the field, and you pack it like you know your shit.  Makes me think you miss that life more than you realized."

"Oh . . . yeah, I guess.  Maybe a little bit?"  Sara shrugged.  "The Remnant stuff's nowhere near as ancient as Prothean tech, but some of it's way more advanced, plus we know even less about it.  Talk about a challenge.  My team would've loved it."

She dropped the mass effect fields around the crates, and Liam helped her get them into a small alcove behind an undeployed forward station and secure them up against the bulkhead with mag-clamps.  "Hey, Ryder -- you ever wonder what happened to them, you know, after?"

"I sort of lost touch once we started Initiative training," she admitted.  "Always felt a little awkward, anyway, after all the sordid details about Dad's research came out.  The last I heard, some of them were heading out to a dig site out near Horizon."

"It was good work.  Important stuff," Liam said.  "Good thing we've got our own resident Remnant expert here, huh?  Eager to dig into all those mysteries.  Probably not the same, though."

"Kind of not at all," Sara agreed, trying not to grin too hard.  If he thought she was doing all this purely because of the scientific value, or out of nostalgia, or some combination thereof, she wasn't going to disabuse him of the idea.  "Think I'm going to get some of this stuff up to her, though.  Thanks for the help, and tell your couch I'm sorry I had to separate you two for a while."

Liam waved a casual hand.  "No worries, Ryder," he said, smirking just a touch.  "Just, ah, have fun, all right?"

She raised an eyebrow at him, and he gave her an unabashedly shit-eating grin before retreating back into the storage room.

***

Sara had her hands tucked behind her back when the door to the escape pod bay slid open. The hatch was closed over the empty space where they had yet to replace the jettisoned pod, and Peebee was pacing back and forth -- hardly a surprise -- in front of one of the terminals she'd hardwired into an inert Remnant Observer.

"Come on, come on, let's figure this out."  She paused just in front of the terminal, her back still to Sara, and bounced impatiently on her toes for a moment.  "I know you're hiding all kinds of juicy information, and I'll get it out of you.  Somehow."

"Um."  Sara cleared her throat.  "Should I not be here for this?  'cause if you need me to leave, I can just, you know.  I saw nothing."

Peebee yelped, but didn't startle, which Sara was going to take as confirmation that she wasn't stressed out and agitated this time.  "Ryder, do you just like sneaking up on me or something?"

"Well, I mean."  A very tiny part of Sara's brain was begging her to not continue speaking.  She was ignoring it.  "It _is_ a nice view."

The sly grin she got from Peebee had no business being that attractive, and yet there it was.  "You do know how to make me feel appreciated, I'll give you that.  So, anything interesting happen on Eos?  Oooh, are you here to give me the juicy gossip?"

"Oh, I, uh . . ."  Sara brought her hands out from behind her back and somewhat awkwardly held their contents out to Peebee: a new Remnant data core, three especially complex circuit boards inlaid with element zero, several Observer lenses in excellent condition.  There were assorted other bits as well, and she'd taken care to pick out the unfamiliar ones, knowing Peebee would enjoy the challenge of figuring them out.  "While we were down there, I got you something."

Behind her, on the bridge, she heard Kallo suppress a giggle as Suvi exclaimed, "Penguins!  It's like penguins!"

Penguins?  Okay then.  She could tune them out, which was just as well because that was when Peebee burst out, "Ooooh!" and promptly pounced on the small pile of components with an undeniable glee that Sara just wanted to bask in for a while. 

"So . . ."  Sara watched, grinning, while Peebee rummaged through the components and laid a few choice pieces out on her worktable.  "You like it?"

"It's perfect.  Some of this is just what I needed."  Peebee tugged her all the way into the escape pod bay so the doors closed behind them, took the rest of the components out of Sara's hands, and set them aside.  "You deserve a proper thank you for it."

"Plenty more where they came from, too," Sara assured her.  "The bigger stuff's all down in the cargo bay.  I grabbed two crates of Rem-tech for you; even got hold of one of those adaptive core things, completely intact."

Peebee laughed and backed her up against the door.  "You are too cute, even if you looked exactly like a teenager trying to surprise a girl with flowers just now." 

"Flowers, huh?  So, should I do that next time instead?"  She let her hands drop to Peebee's hips, a little tentatively.  In response, Peebee sidled a step or two closer and took hold of her shoulders, gently pushing her up against the door.

Not that she had any intention of moving.  She was more than happy with where she was right now.

"Please, what would I do with flowers?  Sure, they're pretty, but I'd rather have something I can really have some fun with.  You know, really get a good look at it, find out all about what makes it tick . . ."  Peebee was pressed up against her now, their faces bare millimeters apart.  "Figure out how to get it to respond the way I want it to."

"Well, you could . . . uh . . ."  This thing between them was still new enough that Sara forgot all about coherent speech every time they were this close.  "Hi."

"Looks like I'm on the right track."  Peebee's thumb brushed across her lips.  "Hi yourself."

They hadn't gone much farther than this: a few minutes together stolen here and there as duty allowed, just enough time to get each other a little bit worked up with a few kisses and a lot of teasing.  Sometimes, Sara wished that Peebee's Remnant research and her own commitment to her Pathfinder duties weren't so hectic of late that they just didn't have _time_ for anything more, but honestly, she was happy to spend any time with Peebee that didn't involve chasing kett all over the cluster or trying not to get killed by Remnant murderbots.  Though with any luck, they might actually manage to steal more than a few minutes together for once, and she wouldn't end up needing a cold shower before the next vidcall or planetside stop.

"I really like just hanging out with you, did I mention that?" She snuck a quick kiss against the pad of Peebee's thumb. 

Peebee's laugh was sly.  "Oh, 'hanging out,' that's what we're calling it then?"  She slid a hand around the back of Sara's neck and pulled her into a proper kiss, slow and mostly soft, but still full of the intensity that she put into everything she did.  There was something exploratory in the way she nipped lightly at Sara's lower lip and followed that up with a light flick of her tongue, then another; Sara whimpered softly and let her lips part in invitation, and then Peebee's tongue slid against her own, gentle and teasing and absolutely intoxicating.

This, too, felt like an adventure.  But then it was one, wasn't it?  Each of them figuring out what the other really liked  -- how for example Peebee had a particularly sensitive spot just below her jawline and a fondness for teeth, and Sara _really_ got into having her hair played with -- was as much fun as chasing after some new Remnant artifact.  They were taking things slowly, that was true, but that didn't make the thrill of discovery any less of a rush.  It was what they'd both come to Andromeda for, after all.

"Mmm.  There are worse ways I could spend my time," Peebee allowed, a good several minutes later.  She ducked her head to nuzzle lightly at the base of Sara's throat.  "Much less entertaining and attractive ways.  No thanks."

Sara closed her eyes, arched back against the door, and let her fingertips sneak up below the hem of Peebee's jacket.  "Flattery will get you everywhere with me, you know."

"As if I really have to try that hard," Peebee scoffed, and licked a long, agonizingly deliberate trail up her throat and along her jawline, ending with a kiss just below her left ear. 

Sara's knees were threatening to give out now, so of course she had to wrap her arms around Peebee's waist and pull her closer, as if the full body contact was the only thing that would save her from just sliding to the floor in a boneless heap.  "Not really, but I love it when you -- oh, _wow_."  She felt Peebee's teeth clamp gently around her earlobe and trailed off into a shaky moan.

"It's just such a rewarding effort," Peebee breathed into her ear, sliding both hands up the front of Sara's shirt.  "Maybe I should --"

"Hey, Ryder," Vetra cut in over the comm.  "Got a message from Kesh.  She wants to set up a meeting to discuss supply logistics, now that things are settled with New Tuchanka.  We're just a couple of hours out from the Nexus, so we should probably grab Cora, and go over some things before we dock."

Sara groaned and thumped the back of her head lightly against the door in frustration.  Four times.

Peebee sighed.  "You know, if your sense of duty wasn't so cute I'd be annoyed right now."

" _I'm_ annoyed right now," Sara grumbled, reluctantly disentangling herself from Peebee.  "Should've gotten Kallo to take the scenic route.  Maybe a nice long cruise around the black hole?"

"Sure, if you had to go talk to Tann or Addison.  Take all the time in the world there."  Peebee was pouting a bit, too, as she helped tug Sara's shirt back down and smooth it out.  "But it's Kesh, and we like her.  Not to mention we like our infrastructure to keep running smoothly."

"I know, I know."  She leaned forward to rest her forehead against Peebee's for a brief moment.  "I'm sorry?"

Peebee gave her one more kiss, this one regrettably innocent, and stepped back.  "Don't worry, you gave me plenty to keep me busy in the meantime.  Stop by Vortex when you're done and see if you can talk Dutch out of a bottle of something new and interesting, then come find me on the Hyperion, okay?"

For someone as impulsive and twitchy around people as she was, Peebee could be amazingly understanding; not for the first time, Sara felt like she'd lucked out here, for once.  "Okay," she agreed, not quite ready to say the first words that had come to mind.  "I'll make it up to you, promise."

"Counting on it," Peebee said, then took her by the shoulders and turned her around to face the door.  "Go on, do your Pathfinder thing."

She really shouldn't have been surprised to get a light smack on the ass just before the door closed behind her, though.

Sara sighed.  "Cold shower, here I come."

***

 

"Penguins mate for life, did you know that?" Suvi was saying when she stepped back out onto the bridge.

Sara's eyebrows did a rapid upward dance toward her hairline.  "Only some breeds, yeah, but I remember that.  Scott spent almost a year completely obsessed with them when we were twelve.  Even set up a whole campaign to talk Mom and Dad into letting him take a trip to Antarctica.  Why are we talking about penguins now?"

Kallo swiveled around in the pilot's chair to look at her.  "Suvi was just telling me about penguin mating habits.  Fascinating stuff, really.  And I didn't realize they were so cute!"

"Sure?"  Sara drew the word out slowly into a very confused question.  "I still have no idea what brought that on, but okay."

Suvi, evidently, was so excited to talk about the subject that she jumped up out of her seat, all animated gestures and eyes alight with enthusiasm. "It's been a common misperception since the 21st century that penguins try to find the perfect stone as a courtship gift, but they're not actually that picky about it."

"And when they do offer pebbles during mating season, it's really just to build nests," Sara added. Honestly, Scott hadn't shut up about penguins for a solid ten months.  "I heard you two mentioning them a little while ago, but how did penguins even come up, anyway?"

All she could really do was stare in total confusion as Suvi dissolved into a fit of giggles, her hands flailing, her mouth occasionally opening as if to explain only to be thwarted by a fresh fit of laughter.

Kallo cleared his throat and very carefully did not look at Sara. "It's the Rem-tech," he said in the kind of strained, slightly higher than usual voice of someone teetering on the verge of hysterics; each word was clipped from the effort of speaking.

"I --" Oh, there went her ears, threatening to spontaneously combust. "What?"

Kallo was visibly _straining_ to avoid looking at her. _"You'realwaysbringingRemtechtoPeebeeandSuvisaysit'slikeapenguinbringingpebbles._ "

Spontaneous ear combustion in three, two . . .

"Is Peebee your penguin?" Suvi got out between snorting giggles.

And boom.  Ear barbecue. 

It was only now occurring to Sara that of course Suvi and Kallo would have noticed how often she stopped by the escape pod bay.  Ordinarily she considered their intelligence and observational skills an asset, but right now?  Not so much.

"Wow, look at the time," she stammered. "I think I . . . have a call with Director Tann . . . that started five minutes ago and there's, you know, things, and, and Pathfinder stuff to do, and -- gotta go bye!"

She couldn't possibly retreat from the bridge fast enough, especially not with the sound of both Suvi and Kallo still giggling behind her.  God, she hoped Peebee was too absorbed in her work now to have heard any of that.  Vetra was standing on the walkway just outside the bridge, her mandibles twitching.  "Everything okay, Ryder?  You look a little flushed."

"Sure, yeah," Sara mumbled.  "Just a little bit warm on the bridge right now, that's all."

"And yet, somehow, breezy?"

"Er."  Sara blinked at her.

Vetra twirled a hand in the direction of her head.  "Can't think of another explanation for why your hair's all . . . tousled.  Maybe a highly localized hurricane in the escape pod bay?"

Did everybody know?  "Just kill me now," Sara said with a sigh.

"Sorry, but no.  I'm not putting myself in a position where I have to explain that to Tann."  Vetra patted her on the shoulder.  "Come on.  I've got an updated inventory list, and supply reports from the outposts.  Let's go figure out what we can tell Kesh that'll keep Tann and the others from breathing down our necks for a while."

She paused and gestured toward the ladder.  "Well."  Amusement resonated through the dual tones of her voice.  " _After_ you get a shower."

***

Ordinarily Sara preferred to check her email in her own quarters rather than use the terminal on the bridge; it wasn't that she didn't trust any of her crew, and she now had to concede that on a ship this small there was very little they didn't all know about each other anyway, but she'd always been twitchy about the idea of other people reading over her shoulder.

The trip to the Nexus had raised a few more colonization issues -- because of course it did -- that led to going back to Kadara to help Ditaeon out with a few things.  Probably unsurprisingly, a few skirmishes with the Roekaar had been involved, and she was still nursing a slightly tender ankle from the most recent scrap . . . so she wasn't exactly relishing the idea of climbing down the ladder.  That was the story she'd be sticking to in case anyone thought she might be trying to avoid a lecture from Lexi about how she should please, please be a little bit more judicious about deciding to biotically charge into things.

Checking her email from the bridge it was, then.  A thank-you message from Keri T'Vessa for the last interview segment, a note from Harry letting her know that Scott's condition hadn't changed but he was in perfectly good health otherwise, a poorly-spelled missive informing her she'd won big after being randomly entered in the lottery on Elaaden.  Oh, and what was this?

_To: Ryder_

_From: Suvi_

_Subject: Supplemental reading!_

_Hey Ryder,_

_While you were busy on Kadara I took the time to go through the Nexus archives to find some reading material I thought might interest you.  SAM helped, and we uploaded them locally for you._

_Enjoy!_

Below the body of the email was a list of links to no less than two dozen articles in the Tempest's databanks about socialization patterns among different penguin breeds . . . not to mention five attached files, all of which looked like dissertations on penguins.  And their mating habits.

Sara slapped both hands over her face and made a strangled noise.

"Everything all right, Ryder?" Suvi asked, far too innocently.

"Mrrrrrgh," was Sara's eloquent reply.  "Think I'll make sure the pyjak hasn't gotten into any of Cora's plants."

Maybe she could have SAM remotely plot their course on the galaxy map, and avoid the bridge altogether from now on?  Sure.  That could be a thing, she decided, and made a hasty retreat.

Liam was just emerging from the armory when she got to the research room, and inside the cargo bay she could hear Gil having a spirited argument with Peebee and Drack for a second before the doors closed.  "Hey, Ryder!  Got a new idea for that movie night I've been working on."

"As long as you're not going to send me running all over Aya or something for the Heleus version of cotton candy," Sara told him, "I'm game."

"Well, listen."  He hopped up to sit on the edge of the research station, kicking his feet back and forth.  "I just thought, why not make it an educational experience?  Jaal's been asking a lot of questions about what it was like back in the Milky Way, and Suvi suggested a documentary, maybe.  It wasn't in the library you got from the Nexus, so Vetra's going to see if one of her, ah, suppliers has it."

Sara made a dubious noise.  "That's a lot of effort to go to for one movie," she said, as if she hadn't been rounding up things for this project all over the cluster already. 

"Yeah, but it's an old classic from Earth," Liam replied.  "Should be fun.  _March of the Penguins_ , she said it was called?"

Sara sighed.  Deeply.  "Can we not just stick to teaching Jaal about the appeal of terrible low-budget action vids?"

"But I'm intrigued by these penguins of yours now," Jaal said, appearing out of the tech lab, "and curious to see if Milky Way species' appreciation of small, cute creatures is similar to our own."

"Yes, but --" Sara flailed her hands helplessly.  "Why not pandas, or space hamsters, or axolotls?  Everybody thinks those are cute, right?"

"Not everyone thinks axolotls are cute," Lexi called up from the medbay.  "I've met a few people who find them a little bit unnerving, actually.  Penguins, on the other hand..."

Vetra stepped out through the armory doors.  "Eh, no such luck anyway.  I wasn't willing to part with as many Blast-Ohs as my contact wanted for the vid.  Sorry."

"Don't look at me," Sara said.  "I was completely fine with _Last of the Legion_ in the first place."

"Hey, wait!" interjected Cora, who'd been listening in on the whole conversation from the meeting room and was leaning over the railing now, looking far too interested in the subject.  "I think I remember one from when I was a kid.  Not a documentary, though, just a cute animated feature about a dancing penguin."

"Does it dance like Ryder does?" Gil wanted to know, over the comm.

Sara gave all of them her best injured look. "I feel so betrayed by all of you right now."

***

It took a while, but the crew finally had their fill of giving her grief about penguins and drifted off to take care of their own duties, make some personal calls, or just get in a little time for themselves. 

Whew.  She loved her crew, she really did; she couldn't have asked for a better group of people to surround herself with on a daily basis, but she was still winding down from several days of dealing with Nexus brass and about at her threshold of socialization for the night.

She was about to retreat to her quarters to do some reading -- no, Suvi, not all those academic papers on penguins -- when her comm chirped.

"Hey," Peebee said over the channel.  "Come up here for a minute?  There's something I want to show you."

As if she would say no to that; Sara was happy to ignore any twinges of protest from her ankle on the way up the ladder this time.  Poc chirped a greeting at her when she walked into the escape pod bay, and she reached up to give the modified Remnant bot a pat.  "Hey, you.  Where's your --"

A pair of arms snaked around her waist from behind, and she yelped in surprise.  "Hi there, gorgeous.  Looking for me?"

Sara brought her hands up to cover Peebee's and leaned back into her.  "You did call me up here.  And it was a nice break from all the teasing."

"The penguin thing's really getting to you, huh?" Peebee asked.

She nodded and bit her lip.  "Maybe a little bit, yeah.  I know you're not big on PDA in front of everybody, and it isn't really their business, and --"  Teeth nipped lightly at the nape of her neck, drawing a shaky whimper that cut off any more nervous babble.

"Take a good look around," Peebee said, her breath warm against Sara's ear.  "This is as close as I get to having a nest around here, right?  In fact, it kind of . . . almost feels like . . . well, _my_ space.  Which it wouldn't be, if not for all the shiny bits of Rem-tech you keep bringing me.  And you know what?  I think I like it that way."

Sara surveyed the area, with its haphazard arrangement of components and panels, stray bits of wiring scattered across almost every horizontal surface, larger pieces stashed in every corner and nook.  It was a mess, and every old habit from her days of Prothean artifact hunting was prodding at her to object, but the mess made the space feel lived in.

"This is where my stuff is," Peebee told her.  "You know it, the crew knows it, and guess what?  I'm just fine with that."

She hadn't even realized how much she'd been needing to hear that.  It felt like her chest just _exploded_ with a pent-up ball of warmth and relief and reassurance flooding her entire body as thoroughly and inexorably as a vault purification field, only instead of running she just wanted to stand there and let it wash over her.

_[Pathfinder, my current readings of your vital signs are chaotic at best.  Are you all right?]_ asked SAM over their private channel, and Sara just laughed.

"I'm fine, SAM, don't worry about it," she said, still laughing as she turned in Peebee's arms to wrap her girlfriend up in a full-body hug.  "And can you maybe just... take a couple of hours off?  Seriously.  Please."

_[Very well, Sara.  I may, however, ask you some questions afterward, in the interest of enhancing my understanding of the human experience.]_

. . . well, she'd deal with that potential embarrassment later.  Right now she had to kiss Peebee very, _very_ thoroughly.

"Wow.  That went over well," Peebee murmured, pulling back just far enough to catch Sara's lower lip between her teeth for a moment.  "So does that mean you're in a generous enough mood to help me with a project?"

Sara kept both arms wrapped firmly around Peebee's waist and moved forward to try and kiss her again, only to accidentally bump foreheads with her instead.  "Ow.  Sorry."

Peebee laughed.  "Promise you'll help, and you're forgiven."

She would have helped anyway, because that was just what she did.  Still. "Okay, okay.  What do you need?"

"Well, I was just thinking.  Since you're our expert on Prothean research --"

"Yeah, right.  Not even."

"Hush," Peebee said mock-sternly.  "Let me get to the point here.  I could use some help tidying up all of this Rem-tech.  Cataloguing it, getting everything organized so I can find what I need, when I need it... you've got more practical, formal experience there than I do.  Want to help me go through it?  Get a chance to show off your sexy scientific know-how?"

Sara grinned.  "When you put it that way?  Sure." 

Getting jabbed in the kidney by the open panel on a Remnant device did kind of put a damper on makeout sessions, after all. 

Besides, the prospect of dusting off some of the techniques she'd learned from Dr. Silva's team was too much fun to pass up.  And so, two hours later, they had most of the larger items stowed away a little more neatly (or at least neatly enough to avoid tripping hazards and stubbed toes) and even managed to clear enough floor space that they were settled comfortably on Peebee's little air mattress while they sorted through a pile of smaller components.

" _So_ much easier to get everything recorded and databased properly with SAM's help," Sara remarked, running her scanner over the collection of Remnant tech, now itemized and separated into the appropriate containers.  "All the exhaustive details, and about a hundredth of the time spent.  Though on the other hand, that was always when the team had the best discussions."

Peebee sealed up a box of processing cores and reached up to set it on her worktable.  "But on the _other_ other hand --" She leaned in to nuzzle behind Sara's ear.  "More time for us to have some fun."

Sara gave her a dopey, half-dazed smile.  "Can't argue with that," she said, and made a point of sliding her fingers slowly and deliberately between Peebee's when she took hold of her hand. 

"I even found us some entertainment for while we're working," Peebee went on.  "Guess who got a hold of that documentary when Vetra couldn't?"

"...you're kidding," Sara groaned.  "Right?"

"Nope!  Got it right here.  Don't look at me," Peebee said mischievously, and cued the vid up on a datapad propped against an inert Remnant core.  "You're the one who went and brought me all this stuff to make a nest."

Sara sighed and stretched out on the mattress, pulling Peebee down with her.  "And now we have to lie in it, huh?"

Peebee shifted, flipping them over so she had Sara pinned beneath her.  "Oh, you better believe it," she said, her grin devious in the flickering light of the vid.  "Hmm, now this seems familiar."

"What can I say?"  Sara slid her arms around Peebee's neck and pulled her down for a kiss.  "Maybe I really like it when you get me on my back.  You could say it's getting to be a habit."

Peebee rolled her eyes and leaned down for another kiss, and by the time her hands were sliding up the front of Sara's shirt again neither of them could be bothered to pay any attention to the details of emperor penguin courtship. 

Wasn't like they needed the inspiration, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> . . . I don't know, you guys. I really don't. I'm blaming this one on a friend of mine, who actually gave me the "Is Peebee your penguin?" line in the first place.


End file.
